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What churches do within their denominations is their business since they are effectively private clubs with private rules. But there is no proposal by any group or politician in the USA that promotes the idea that any priest should be penalized for refusing to perform a same-sex marriage. To suggest otherwise is to traffic in rumors.

In the end - everyone has their own opinions on the matter, and nobody is going to have their mind changed over any of it. It was never my intention to do so. So easy to get off track because statements not readily agreed-upon have to be dissected and argued over. By the time it's done, their applicability has lost some of their immediacy and charm, if they ever had any.

Everyone will justify their own actions, no matter what they are - even Pletnev.

But there is no proposal by any group or politician in the USA that promotes the idea that any priest should be penalized for refusing to perform a same-sex marriage. To suggest otherwise is to traffic in rumors.

True, there is no proposal at least that I've heard of. But it had to be made explicit - including through new legislation - that clergy could refuse in these cases legally, since anti-discrimination legislation already on the books, combined with newly legal homosexual unions, left open a possibility of pursuing prosecution.

I think the attitudes shown by at least one poster on this board ("cruel but fair") indicate that some legal challenge would have been made otherwise.

The government should get out of the marriage business where it has no compelling interest. Excepting underage minors who are subject to sexual abuse, the government has no persuasive argument to nullify or legally forbid the recognition of any personal union, straight or gay. Who would want their choice of a spouse to be subject to the condescending approval orcondemnation of any mere politician or bureaucrat?

Local city halls should register civil unions to both heterosexual and homosexual couples. Religious marriages may be left to any religious organization to perform as they please, but those unions should not have any legal hierarchy over civil unions.

Marriage as an "intellectual property right"? Traditionally, marriage has governed the right of a man's control over a woman the children they create, social standing, and the rights of inheritance. To quote Tina Turner, "What's love got to do with it?"

Black Americans (slaves) in America were forbidden to marry for five hundred years (the Bible, regrettably, sanctions slavery in the Book of Leviticus), and right of interracial couples to marry has been recognized only since 1967!

The entire marriage argument is largely as mask for the real issue: who gets the sinister thrill of being able to control the levers of power over other citizens.

The entire Pletnev situation is tragic from every perspective. I have no idea about Pletnev's sexual preferences (nor do I care, actually), or the veracity of the charges leveled against him, so I choose not to proffer speculation about that. The whole sordid matter will unfold in the Thailand courts (heaven only knows what their "due process" consists of...)and we will all read about it in the press.

On a note previously struck in this particular thread - there is a defensive posture by some to rebuff the claim that many pianist are somewhat "effeminate".

I have had many male piano students through the years who were comparatively effeminate (effeminate in comparison to, say, James Cagney). Why is being effeminate considered a bad thing? Perhaps the prejudice lies in the perception of power. Effeminacy is associated with women, and traditionally women have had no power. Id est, anything "effeminate" or female-like is "bad" because it is in a lesser power position.

We are no longer in stone age or even in the Age of Bronze, so can we move the discussion of human value to a new level not based solely on idolization of brute physical power?

So what if Chopin was rather effeminate, and not stomping around like Theodore Roosevelt? Some men are effeminate. So what of it? What's the problem? Why should we value them less?

Zeroing in more specifically on the entire homosexuals-at-the-keyboard issue: If there were no homosexuals in the arts there would be no Broadway, no Hollywood, and the classical music scene would be reduced in half at a minimum. It is true that there is a preponderance of gays in the arts, and apparently this has always been the case.

Horowitz made no secret of his preference for men and neither did Earl Wild. A new biography of Richter discusses his homosexuality. I don't feel it is my place to 'out' other pianists, but if you are inclined to do so, type the name of the top concert pianists of the past fifty years into Google along with the word "gay" or "homosexual" and note how many legitimate books and news articles appear on screen addressing the matter. You may find the results surprising.

Slaves in America were forbidden to marry for five hundred years (the Bible, regrettably, sanctions slavery in the Book of Leviticus), and right of interracial couples to marry has been recognized only since 1967!

The entire marriage argument is largely as mask for the real issue: who gets the sinister thrill of being able to control the levers of power over other citizens.

That's fine for football, but I don't see much social or civic progress coming out of it.

Instead of picking sides, I wish people would explore the issues a little more fully. Take this thread for example - has anyone looked into the demographics of pedophiliacs? Are pedophiliacs more likely to be involved in the arts? Homosexual? Russian? Pianists?

And has anyone bothered to check in to how the Thai legal system works? What kind of due process is there? What kind of evidence is there? We've heard rumors of pictures, which Pletnev admits, but he also says somewhere the pictures don't depict anything prurient, so?

I plan on following the case and posting updates. I count myself among those who enjoy his recordings. If he's innocent, I sincerely hope he continues to record and enjoy his successful career. If not, I hope they lock him up and use his money to combat child prostitution in Thailand. And regardless, I hope everyone takes something away from our discussion of the issues besides having simply picked and argued a side.

Andromaque
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Registered: 08/29/08
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Loc: New York

BTW, it just so happens that Stephen Hough (a homosexual pianist who converted to catholicism; how "abnormal" is that?!!) has a recent entry in his blog that comments on issues similar to those at hand in this thread.

Mark_C
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 21045
Loc: New York

Originally Posted By: eweiss

Here's what I've discovered... those who argue the loudest against homosexuality, usually have something to hide, either consciously or subconsciously....

Even speaking as someone 'on your side' (and a shrink, FWIW), IMO that's a tough statement to support or defend. Sure, there are many instances where it's true (include some famous ones in recent years), but as a broad statement......I don't see how you or anyone can assert that, except as a speculation.

_________________________
"Everything I say is my opinion, including the facts." :-)

Marriage as an "intellectual property right"?Marriage is primarily concerned with material property, social power, supervision of offspring, and inheritance.

I don't see the point here -- the first part is a question, and the second part is true.

My point from earlier was that the institution of marriage is collectively the property right of heterosexuals of all cultures, just as e.g. bar mitzvah is the intellectual property right of the Jewish tradition.

If public opinion among heterosexuals shifts so as to expand the concept of marriage to homosexuals - that will be one possibility. If it doesn't, homosexuals should choose a different name for homosexual unions. (Or co-opt a name already in use such as 'matrimony' -- I think many otherwise hesitant heterosexuals would react positively to the idea of homosexual matrimony, as distinct from heterosexual marriage. (If we can ignore the motherly etymology it probably has.)

Originally Posted By: Jonathan Baker

The entire marriage argument is largely as mask for the real issue: who gets the sinister thrill of being able to control the levers of power over other citizens.

That's a red herring. This is an issue of rights. If a group of people holds something to be meaningful and to be something that figures centrally in their cultural traditions, it's cynical to cast it as an issue of power.

It's easy to move to making that kind of a claim because apparently folks conflate our present discussion with the fight against hate , which is a noble and difficult one, in which the opponents are sinister.

I've been reading through this thread with amazement. Why do people always confuse pedophilia with homosexuality? The two have nothing to do with eachother. A normal homosexual man has no more attraction to a young boy than a normal heterosexual man would have to a young girl.

Deviant behavior is not a homosexual disease. Deviant behavior is the disease, and a crime.

Employing the words "intellectual property rights" to advance your argument is a misuse of the term, which commonly refers to patents and copyrights.

No one has an exclusive patent on human rights of any kind. Those who would claim they are entitled to a privileged position over others merely by the situation of their birth or biology are attempting to exercise a form of class warfare for their own benefit.

There are those who are possessed of the odd notion that citizen's rights are a substance of limited volume, to be rationed out carefully. The implicit fear is that if somebody else is allowed to have as much as I do, I necessarily have less. It is a false presumption.

Beyond the specious notion of exclusive right to the ownership and use of words (Daniel Webster would have a belly-laugh from that one) I have yet to read an argument, anywhere, clarifying how, exactly, straight marriage would be lessened in prestige or rights by co-equal gay marriage. Until that is persuasively answered (good luck) there is no credible argument against recognition of gay marriage.

The definitions of marriage are not consistent in any society over time, as I have previously illustrated. The definitions of marriage have already changed within my lifetime, and will change many times over after we are all dead and forgotten...

Although you call me "cynical" for framing homophobia (I will include racism and sexism as well) in terms of power & privilege, you fail to refute my point with either logic or examples. It is not cynical to be accurate, and my point stands.

It is true that the superstitions of Bronze Age barbarians enshrined in biblical documents are most commonly cited as justification for slavery (during the Civil War), homophobia, sexism, etc. But modern scientific research is in sharp conflict with these legacies of the Dark Ages. Never-the-less, some will cling to particular and fearful scriptures in hopes of winning favor with some-or-other deity. But not all of us worship the same deities, or any deity at all, and ever since Jefferson established the wall separating church from state (see Bill of Rights, Article I, and Federalist Papers) the matter of human rights is no longer the exclusive provenance of priests.

Mr. Lang, employing the words "intellectual property rights" to advance your argument is a misuse of the term, which commonly refers to patents and copyrights.

An ironic argument - you're happy to expand the meaning of 'marriage', but insist on an obsolete and narrow definition of 'intellectual property rights'. Individuals have intellectual property rights, and collectives do as well - corporations, for example, and Native Americans have intellectual property rights, and are so justified in, e.g., objecting to misuse of Native American names (which to be legitimate must be conferred by the means determined by the tribes).

Originally Posted By: Jonathan Baker

No one one has an exclusive patent on human rights of any kind. Those who would claim they are entitled to a privileged position over others merely by the situation of their birth or biology are attempting to exercise a form of class warfare for their own benefit.

There are those who seem to be possessed of the odd notion that citizens rights are a substance of limited volume, to be rationed out carefully. The implicit fear is that if somebody else has as much as I do, I necessarily have less. It is a false notion.

I'm not sure who your audience here is. Of course, I agree that no one has a patent on human rights. I haven't made any claims about entitlement to privileged positions. My fundamental premises are fairness and universal application of human rights, including rights to intellectual property, and rights to undifferentiated equal rights for homosexual and heterosexual unions.

Originally Posted By: Jonathan Baker

Beyond the specious notion of exclusive right to the ownership and use of words (Daniel Webster would get a belly-laugh out of that)

I'm not sure why he would be laughing. There are plenty of words that are protected - trademarked names and titles being among the first to come to my own mind.

Originally Posted By: Jonathan Baker

I have yet to read an argument, anywhere, clarifying how, exactly, any heterosexual's marriage is lessened in value or rights by co-equal homosexual marriage. Until that is persuasively answered (good luck) there is no credible argument against recognition of gay marriage.

This is hurtful, much like the wry historical Caucasian-American misappropriation of Native American language. The truth is, it's up to Native Americans how to use their culture. Period. It's morally wrong there, and it's not any less morally wrong in the case of marriage.

Originally Posted By: Jonathan Baker

The definitions of marriage are not consistent in any society over time, as I have previously illustrated. They have already changed within my lifetime, and will change many times over after we are all dead and forgotten.

It's fallacious to say that since there have been changes in the past, and since we are discussing another change, they all fall in the same category. Secondly, I've already acknowledged explicitly, and implicitly through use of the concept of intellectual property, that if attitudes change, the concept can change. Who am I to stand in the way? But if it doesn't, it's wrong to co-opt it for one's own projects.

Originally Posted By: Jonathan Baker

Although you call me "cynical" for framing homophobia (and I will include racism and sexism as well) in terms of power & privilege, you fail to refute my point with either logic or examples. It is not cynical to be accurate, and my point stands.

I'm lost, honestly. This sounds like you're conflating lots of things, and adding some conspiracy talk. I don't know how many times I need to say what seems obvious to me - I'm not defending hate or cultural imperialism. To me this seems as obvious as the distinction between homosexuality and pedophilia - and I wonder why so many here are able to correctly make the latter but not the former.

Originally Posted By: Jonathan Baker

It is true that the superstitions of Bronze Age barbarians enshrined in various documents is most commonly cited as justification for slavery, homophobia, sexism, etc., but science is in sharp conflict with these legacies of the Dark Ages. Never-the-less, some will cling to these scriptures in hopes of winning favor with some-or-other deity. But not all of us worship the same deities, or any diety at all, and ever since Jefferson established the wall separating church from state,the matter of human rights is not longer the exclusive provenance of priests.

Again, I'm not sure who your audience is in this rant. I'm not religious and none of my arguments depend on religion. Parts of the above read rather like hate speech.

Here's what I've discovered... those who argue the loudest against homosexuality, usually have something to hide, either consciously or subconsciously.

The angrier and louder the rhetoric, the more those spewing it back themselves into their own dark hole - so to speak.

That has been true for some public figures in the US, that's for sure. Actually, there was a scientific experiment that proved your theory. The gist of the finding was that homophobes get turned on by gay erotica.

I've been reading through this thread with amazement. Why do people always confuse pedophilia with homosexuality? The two have nothing to do with eachother. A normal homosexual man has no more attraction to a young boy than a normal heterosexual man would have to a young girl.

Deviant behavior is not a homosexual disease. Deviant behavior is the disease, and a crime.

I was formulating almost this exact response! I'm a straight man, and I have absolutely no desire to have relations with young girls. I have a few gay friends who have absolutely no interest in young boys. As Ralph says, it is not a "homosexual disease." I equate it with bestiality and necrophilia (except it's more harmful to its victims)--there's something wrong in the brain.

What biological purpose does human homosexuality serve, how did it evolve, and for what purposes? I must have missed that chapter.

It's obvious to us all that you did. There is not a shortage of explanations for it. One primary one is that it emerged as a re-appropration of reproductive machinery (in the brain and of course also sexual organs) to serve purposes of male-male and female-female bonding.

In many species, there are members who contribute to reproduction on the big picture (sustainment and expansion of the whole population) rather than on an individual level. Think of worker bees, for example. If you have individuals contributing on this level, their reproductive functions are free to be applied to whatever they work well for. One thing they are good at is creating intimacy, strengthening trust, underlining emotional connections . . .

But, even if none of this were true, why on earth should we take the evolutionary functions of parts of our being to limit us as to what we use them for? Teeth evolved for breaking apart food, but primitive humans used their teeth as a general tool -- not just for food, but for helping to make tools and manipulate other things. Almost surely, that kind of flexibility in behavior played a central part in making us how successful we are.

Yes, but we are talking about humans - not worker bees. If you want to talk about the many animals that change their sexes as needed, hive mentality, etc - that's okay, but they don't apply. Your theory on the bonding sounds interesting, but doesn't appear to be essential to a species' survival - who proposed this theory?Using teeth for things they weren't designed for is definately benificial if it gives an edge, but is still not a normal usage of them. It doesn't matter how beneficial my elbow is as a paintbrush, it wasn't designed to be used that way - therfore it's an abnormal usage. I'm not saying you shouldn't use your elbow or teeth for operating vending machines, I'm just saying it's not normal.

Your major mistake here is looking at the entire species as the unit of survival/reproduction, and this isn't how things work. Evolution works for the survival of the 'gene' that encourages a particular behaviour. Genes that encourage sharp teeth in beavers for example will be selected for, not beavers with sharp teeth. Of course in almost all cases these two equate to the same thing, but that isn't always so. The gene that is being selected for doesn't necessarily have to be within the organism that is doing the surviving.

Lets assume a particular gene influenced homosexual behaviour (a massive over-simplification but the argument stands). Studies have shown that gay men are more likely to have older siblings than straight men, in fact every time a woman has another successive male child the likeliood of it being homosexual increases each time. And so if you have a bunch of siblings living close together as social animals do, having an extra young, fit, gay brother whose resources aren't dedicated to reproduction and foraging for his own offspring can instead be concentrated on helping to fend for the rest of the family instead. The gay brother in this scenario would probably die young, and without reproducing, and so his own genes won't be passed on and be selected for. But there is a very high liklihood indeed that the genes that influenced his homosexual behaviour will also be in the bodies of his family who he has helped to survive, because close family members share many of the same genes (though they don't always have the same outcomes). So by the gay brothers genes causing him to become homosexual, they have in fact promoted their own survival in the bodies of his siblings (in which they were 'dormant' lets say), even though they actually discouraged the survival of the body they were active in.

This is a major theory as to the evolutionary benefits of homosexuality, and another workable one has already been suggested here. (To say that bonding/trust relationships don't encourage survival is quite wrong, even the most statistically miniscule advantage that it provided would build up to significant effects over time). This mechanism is known as indirect selection or the 'extended phenotype' and can also explain a number of other superficially strange behaviours all throughout the animal kingdom, worker bees being a particularly good example (they encourage the survival of genes that cause them to sacrifice their own reproductive success because those genes are also in the queen bee but inactively so) and you can't say that such models don't apply to humans. We may be vastly different in many respects but we are all evolving by the same mechanisms, and a great deal of understanding can be gained by drawing useful comparisons. Also remember most of this evolutionary 'sculpting' took place long before humans remotely resembled the civilised animals we are today (by which I mean animals that have civilisations). It is therefore also probable that for most of the time our species has existed, homosexuality hasn't been treated the way it has been for the past few thousand years. There is no evidence that any other species looks down on homosexual behaviour.

Here are some interesting articles if you are curious about my sources:

Also Dawkins' book The Extended Phenotype discusses at length the evolutionary mechanism I've been talking about.

PS.To say that the use of teeth as practical tools other than for just chewing and biting is abnormal makes almost no sense. Sure, the first time an an animal used a part of its body for a purpose that it didn't evolve for it could said to be abmornal usage, but if that usage persisted for thousands, even millions of years it is completely nonsensical to call it abnormal. By that logic sharks using their jaws/teeth for anything at all is abnormal because the shark's jaw evolved from cartilage used to pump water through the gills like bellows. When it comes to behaviour as opposed to physical protrusions, its harder to quantify but the same logic applies. The first time animals began to exhibit same-sex attraction it could be described as abnormal behaviour, but since same-sex attraction has now persisted most probably for millions of years such a term has no meaning. The only sense in which one could call it abnormal is that it does not occur in the majority, which equally meaningless an argument as far as evolution is concerned.

Lets assume a particular gene influenced homosexual behaviour (a massive over-simplification but the argument stands). Studies have shown that gay men are more likely to have older siblings than straight men, in fact every time a woman has another successive male child the likeliood of it being homosexual increases each time. And so if you have a bunch of siblings living close together as social animals do, having an extra young, fit, gay brother whose resources aren't dedicated to reproduction and foraging for his own offspring can instead be concentrated on helping to fend for the rest of the family instead. The gay brother in this scenario would probably die young, and without reproducing, and so his own genes won't be passed on and be selected for. But there is a very high liklihood indeed that the genes that influenced his homosexual behaviour will also be in the bodies of his family who he has helped to survive, because close family members share many of the same genes (though they don't always have the same outcomes). So by the gay brothers genes causing him to become homosexual, they have in fact promoted their own survival in the bodies of his siblings (in which they were 'dormant' lets say), even though they actually discouraged the survival of the body they were active in.

This is a major theory as to the evolutionary benefits of homosexuality, and another workable one has already been suggested here. (To say that bonding/trust relationships don't encourage survival is quite wrong, even the most statistically miniscule advantage that it provided would build up to significant effects over time). This mechanism is known as indirect selection or the 'extended phenotype' and can also explain a number of other superficially strange behaviours all throughout the animal kingdom, worker bees being a particularly good example (they encourage the survival of genes that cause them to sacrifice their own reproductive success because those genes are also in the queen bee but inactively so) and you can't say that such models don't apply to humans. We may be vastly different in many respects but we are all evolving by the same mechanisms, and a great deal of understanding can be gained by drawing useful comparisons. Also remember most of this evolutionary 'sculpting' took place long before humans remotely resembled the civilised animals we are today (by which I mean animals that have civilisations). It is therefore also probable that for most of the time our species has existed, homosexuality hasn't been treated the way it has been for the past few thousand years. There is no evidence that any other species looks down on homosexual behaviour.

Here are some interesting articles if you are curious about my sources:

Also Dawkins' book The Extended Phenotype discusses at length the evolutionary mechanism I've been talking about.

PS.To say that the use of teeth as practical tools other than for just chewing and biting is abnormal makes almost no sense. Sure, the first time an an animal used a part of its body for a purpose that it didn't evolve for it could said to be abmornal usage, but if that usage persisted for thousands, even millions of years it is completely nonsensical to call it abnormal. By that logic sharks using their jaws/teeth for anything at all is abnormal because the shark's jaw evolved from cartilage used to pump water through the gills like bellows. When it comes to behaviour as opposed to physical protrusions, its harder to quantify but the same logic applies. The first time animals began to exhibit same-sex attraction it could be described as abnormal behaviour, but since same-sex attraction has now persisted most probably for millions of years such a term has no meaning. The only sense in which one could call it abnormal is that it does not occur in the majority, which equally meaningless an argument as far as evolution is concerned.

I'll have to check out your sources, today.Concerning the younger sibling theory: is this a strictly genetic thing, or is it an environmental thing? For instance, the very fact that there is a dominant, older male in a position of power over other males might cause their subservience to become a form of homosexuality - after all, their chances of mating will not be so good. Similar to how packs work, with dominant alpha males lording it over the lesser males, it appears that any male can become the dominant alpha. It might be stretching it to say that environment has less to do with a male's position in it's society, than a simple gene encouraging homosexual and subservient behavior.

Concerning the PS: these are just semantics, now, I think. By any passionless view on the matter, until homosexuality supercedes heterosexuality in imprtance and function, it will still be considered a biologically abnormal use of the reproduction system.

What makes you think I don't follow evolution? Because I don't subscribe to every new theory that emerges, keep up with every new finding, voraciously devour every evolutionary journal to stay on the cutting edge, just in case a debate ever arises?

I might as well admit I'm not a pianist, either. After all - I don't everthing there is to know about a piano.I'm not even a Mozart fan - I haven't played all his works.I don't even believe in eating steak for pleasure - I haven't properly tested every single type of steak for it's taste.